


Angels and Demons

by osprey_archer



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 22:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Enjolras has a mistress!” </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Grantaire stopped short right in front of the Musain. “Impossible,” he said.</i>
</p>
<p>Enjolras's new mistress is the female personification of France - or so he says. Grantaire thinks she might be an evil spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels and Demons

“Enjolras has a mistress!” 

Grantaire stopped short right in front of the Musain. “Impossible,” he said. 

“Not impossible, my friend,” said Courfeyrac. He slung an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders. “She’s inside right now, sitting with Enjolras. My God! She might be even prettier than he is.” 

“Perhaps - perhaps she’s a comrade,” said Grantaire. “Bringing a girl in among the Amis, it’s the sort of thing Enjolras might do.” Much more like something Enjolras would do than taking a mistress. Enjolras loved only France, France and liberty - 

“Ha!” said Courfeyrac. “And that’s why Enjolras is sitting on her lap, I suppose, it seemed the comradely thing to do?”

“Sitting on her lap,” Grantaire echoed, and he pushed past Courfeyrac into the Musain. 

The place was packed and noisy, but Grantaire saw Enjolras at once, of course. And it was as Courfeyrac said. Enjolras sat in a woman’s lap. 

A sickening mixture of envy and grief clawed at Grantaire’s stomach, and he had to look away. It was not fair - it was not fair - Enjolras, whose whole heart was supposed to be given to France - in love with someone who was not Grantaire - 

Well. It seemed Enjolras did not love France quite as much as all that, after all. Of course he did not. It should not have surprised Grantaire to find that Enjolras, like anyone, lost his virtue in the end. That was the way of the world: decay.

Courfeyrac nudged Grantaire aside. It was only a gentle push, but Grantaire had so lost track of his surroundings that it almost knocked him over. Courfeyrac steadied him without taking his eyes off Enjolras’s mistress. “Isn’t she a stunner?” he said worshipfully. 

Grantaire forced himself to look again at the woman. Only the woman. He would not look at Enjolras. Yes, Courfeyrac was right, a stunner. Dark hair and a splendid figure, and tall, impossible tall: Enjolras sat on her lap, and the top of his head rose only to the level of her eyes. She looked like - 

“She looks like Liberty,” Grantaire said. “In Delacroix’s painting.”

“Probably she was the model,” said Courfeyrac. He gave a low whistle. “Imagine, our Enjolras landing a model! He _would_ take liberty as his mistress.” 

“She’s awfully tall,” Grantaire said uneasily. And not just tall for a woman: tall for any human, like an oversize statue come to life. 

But Courfeyrac did not seem to see anything wrong. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” he said. “I have to meet her.” And he left Grantaire standing in the doorway of the Musain, snaking through the crowded room to kiss the woman’s hand and clap a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder. 

Grantaire could not hear what Courfeyrac said to Enjolras over the din. But it made Enjolras smile, and it was not Enjolras’s usual smile for his friends - for, that is, everyone he found less annoying than Grantaire. This was a brighter smile, large and warm and almost dreamy: the smile he got after a few cups of wine and a question about the future he saw for France. 

If a man had not stumbled into Grantaire, knocking him sideways and blocking his view, Grantaire could never have looked away. But he did, and he saw that the woman, the woman who looked like Delacroix’s Liberty, was looking at him. 

She smiled. It was a slow smile, almost seductive, as her lips parted, just slightly. But no, no, that was not right. Not seductive, not quite. The tips of her canine teeth, as impossibly sharp as she was impossibly tall, pointed out over her lower lip. She smiled, watching Grantaire, and drew Enjolras’s shirt aside, exposing his collarbone, a bruise already blooming on his shoulder.

Grantaire could not breath. How could Courfeyrac not notice? How could the whole tavern not fall silent to stare at Enjolras’s exposed skin? But Courfeyrac had gone for wine, and the tavern noise did not abate, and Enjolras turned his head to look at his mistress. His eyes jumped over Grantaire, as if he was not there. He smiled at his mistress, and she bent her head and sunk her teeth into the dark bruise on his pale skin. 

His head jerked slightly at the pinprick. But she stroked her fingers through his hair, and he relaxed. Not only his body relaxed, but his face: for the first time Grantaire had ever seen, Enjolras looked at peace. 

It seemed ages to Grantaire. But it could not have been long before it was done, and Enjolras tugged his shirt back into place. 

Grantaire did not quite mean to cross the tavern, but he found himself doing so anyway. “Enjolras,” he said. “Who is she?” 

Enjolras looked up at him: eyelids half-lowered, hair mussed. “Marianne,” he said. 

Marianne. Emblem of freedom, of reason, of France. 

She smiled again at Grantaire, the bloody tips of her fangs almost invisible against the red of her mouth. 

***

Had drink or jealousy driven him mad? No one else seemed to notice anything strange in Marianne: her impossible height or her fangs or the growing ruddiness of her cheeks, even as Enjolras grew thinner and paler by the week, his eyes larger and more burning in his strong-boned face. 

Sometimes, Grantaire thought it must be madness. What did he think she could be? She could not be Marianne: that surely was an impossible thing. Some demon or succubus; some vampire, perhaps, who had convinced Enjolras that she was France. But who believed in such things anymore? Surely not Grantaire, who believed in nothing. 

Yet when Grantaire saw Enjolras and Marianne, it did not seem madness at all. The other Amis joked and drank and laughed, and above their heads Marianne smiled at Grantaire, the almost-seductive open-lipped smile that showed the tips of her fangs. But it was not seductive, quite. It was...Grantaire searched for a word. 

Conspiratorial. As if he were conspiring with her in Enjolras’s growing thinness, to plant the shadows beneath his eyes. 

She was not always there. One night when Marianne was gone, Grantaire looped an arm around Enjolras’s neck. Enjolras tried to shove him away, but Grantaire leaned over his shoulder and breathed into his ear, “Marianne.”

Enjolras was suddenly very still. “What about her?”

Grantaire pushed Enjolras’s shirt aside, exposing the bruise left by Marianne’s fangs. He placed a finger tip on it. “She’s a vampire,” said Grantaire. 

Enjolras shoved him away. Grantaire fell on the floor, and Enjolras squatted beside him, grabbing Grantaire’s collar in his fist. “You don’t know anything about it,” Enjolras said, voice low but furious. “She’s France.” 

“Or a demon, or a succubus,” said Grantaire. He tried and failed to prop himself on his elbows. He fell back and began to laugh: everything seemed suddenly terrible funny. 

Enjolras tightened his grip on Grantaire’s collar, dragging him upward so he could speak into his ear. “Don’t speak of her again,” he said, and gave Grantaire a shake before dropping him to the floor. The fall knocked the wind out of Grantaire, and he gasped for breath, but as Enjolras rose, Grantaire spoke again.

“What did she promise you? She lies, you know, she lies: she is only saying what you want to hear.”

Enjolras planted a boot on Grantaire’s chest and shoved him against the floor. The Amis had paid no attention before, but suddenly their table was an eddy of silence in the loud tavern, everyone silent and waiting and watching. 

“You drink too much, Grantaire,” Enjolras said. He pushed his boot into Grantaire’s chest, just hard enough to hurt. Then he turned back to the table, not even looking at Grantaire - but his voice carried, stern and loud as he said, “Get out.” 

***

Grantaire did not come to the Musain again for a long time, and even then he came in the morning. It was foolish, perhaps; but he wanted to be where Enjolras had been, even if he could not see Enjolras there. 

But Enjolras sat at a table in the corner. 

Grantaire had not seen Enjolras for a long time: _eighteen days_ , his brain supplied, although he had not meant to count. Although he had seemed to fade, Enjolras had still seemed to burn with light: his golden hair a halo, his eyes bright as a prophet’s, his voice thunderous as he exhorted them all to - well, Grantaire was usually too drunk for listening. 

But now Enjolras looked so ill that his beauty had faded: his golden hair lusterless, his red lips pale, dark bruise-like shadows under his eyes. He stared dull and unseeing down at a bowl of soup. 

Grantaire stopped in the doorway. “Enjolras,” he said, and could not go on. 

Enjolras lifted his head just enough to look up. “Grantaire,” he said, and his head drooped again, as if he did not have the strength to hold it. 

Grantaire crossed the room. He fell to his knees beside Enjolras’s chair and took Enjolras’s hands in his. “Enjolras,” he said, “you must give her up.” 

He half-expected Enjolras to try kicking him again, but Enjolras only sat with his head bowed, so Grantaire could only see the tip of his nose, the sweep of his lashes. Enjolras tried to pull his hands out of Grantaire’s, but Grantaire held fast, kissing Enjolras’s cold fingers. “She will kill you; she is killing you,” Grantaire urged. “She’ll suck out all your blood and give you nothing, Enjolras.” 

“You can see her?” Enjolras said, his voice only half a question. “See her - as she is…” 

“I always see things as they are,” Grantaire said. “In all their ugliness. You hate that about me. She’s killing you, Enjolras; she’ll suck you dry...” 

“Of course she will,” said Enjolras. He sounded sleepy. “It’s all right, Grantaire, she warned me. It’s all right.”

“Warned you,” Grantaire managed. 

“Yes. One man’s blood is not enough to establish liberty. Not here, not now,” Enjolras said, and a little of the old fire came back into his voice. “There must be enough blood for her to grow strong, to water the furrows of France...only it must be willing, willing blood. They thought, during the Revolution, the Terror...but France must have willing sacrifice, France and Liberty.”

Grantaire was appalled. “That’s madness, Enjolras,” he said. “She’s not France or Liberty or any of that, she’s some sort of evil spirit, some devil, lying to you, as devils do. She’s telling you she can make your desires come true, but you will die before you see…” Suddenly Grantaire was angry. Was this the devil’s new trick, then, to tempt men not with vices but with their better angels? “This is what comes of all your believing: you cannot see clearly what is right in front of you.” 

Ill as he was, Enjolras could still look at Grantaire with his old contempt. “What makes you say that?” he asked. “Do you have any proof that she is not what she says?”

“Do you have proof that she can fulfill any of her promises?” 

Enjolras’s gaze lifted away from Grantaire. Grantaire would paint a prophet like that, or an angel: not an insipid angel, but Gabriel who always had to say, _Fear not_. “You find it so much easier to believe in evil than good,” he said. 

“Because I see so much more evil in the world,” Grantaire said. “What did she do, Enjolras? Did she show you an image of the future? Visions are easy, visions are lies. I could paint you a thousand visions and none of them would bring liberty a moment closer to this earth.” 

“No vision,” said Enjolras, though he stared into the air as if he were seeing one. “She showed me...a man she had saved, a man of flesh and blood, whom she saved from prison, and gave him a new life.”

“Some escaped criminal!” Grantaire said, incredulously. But Enjolras was not looking at him, and Grantaire realized that this argument was fruitless: he would never argue Enjolras out of believing something he wanted to believe. “So perhaps she is - “ He could not say, _perhaps she is France_. “Perhaps she is not lying. But can you be certain? Is it worth dying for anything less than certainty?” 

Enjolras looked at Grantaire again. It was not contempt in his face, Grantaire realized; it was pity, pity that Grantaire could not see what Enjolras saw. “If you’re certain,” Enjolras said, “it’s not a sacrifice. Then it’s only...tactics.” He paused, his eyes drifting away from Grantaire. “Martyrs don’t die for victory. They die for right - because their causes are right - even if their deaths do nothing but say, _Here I stand_.” 

Grantaire’s hands tightened around Enjolras’s, protesting. Enjolras looked down at Grantaire, kneeling at his feet, and said, “You do not understand, do you.”

“I understand,” said Grantaire. “It is not that I do not understand, Enjolras; I understand all you say, and I think it’s madness.” His hands tightened, and without meaning to, he pulled Enjolras from the chair. Enjolras slid to the floor, his shirt slipping askew. Just above the collarbone, where the pulse beat in the shoulder, a blue-black bruise stood out against Enjolras’s pallid skin.

Grantaire touched his fingers to it. Enjolras did not react, did not even go still, and Grantaire moved forward and touched his lips lightly to the bruise. 

He should not have done it; and, having done it, he should have leaned back at once, as if he were simply kissing it better. But he did not. Enjolras was not pushing him away, and Grantaire might never touch him again - because Enjolras would not let him (because Enjolras might soon be dead). Grantaire pressed his mouth to Enjolras’s shoulder blade, opening his lips, tasting Enjolras’s skin: a little salt, a little copper, as if a trace of blood hung on the skin from Marianne’s last meal. 

And then Enjolras pushed Grantaire away. A light push, barely more than a touch, but Grantaire sprang away so swiftly that he fell back on the floor. “I am sorry,” he said, though he was not quite. “I am…”

But Enjolras was not looking at him, but over Grantaire’s shoulder. “I must go to her,” he said. 

Grantaire turned. Marianne stood in the corner of the room, so tall that her head almost brushed the ceiling. “Marianne,” Enjolras said, and he let out a little sigh, like the sound a man makes after the first swig of a long-awaited drink. He grasped the chair to help himself stand. 

Grantaire grabbed Enjolras’s free hand, trying to drag him back down. “Please, please, let me,” he said. “You are too weak, she will kill you. Let me go in your stead.”

“Your blood is half wine,” said Enjolras. “It would be useless to her.” 

“I’m sure even Liberty likes a good drink sometimes,” Grantaire said. He tugged Enjolras’s hand, and Enjolras let go of the chair and slipped again to the floor. “Let me help, Enjolras, you don’t need to do this alone. She needs more blood than you can give, so please, Enjolras. Let me.”

Enjolras looked into Grantaire’s face, as though searching for something, and Grantaire felt a moment of near panic. Enjolras often looked at him thus, and always ended by turning away, unable to find anything. He did not want to disappoint Enjolras again. 

But Enjolras did not look away just yet. “All the Amis could give blood - the other revolutionary groups could help. And that would strengthen her far more...” he said. 

That was not what Grantaire meant. “But if she’s a demon - think how that would strengthen her - I offered my blood to save you, Enjolras, not to open the gates of Hell.”

“It was good of you to offer,” said Enjolras, and there was more kindness in his voice than he usually directed at Grantaire. “But you don’t believe in the cause, Grantaire. It has to be a willing sacrifice, and you...” 

“And a willing sacrifice he offers.” 

The voice, deep and resonant as a cathedral bell, startled them both. Marianne had crossed the room, and she towered above them where they knelt. “It is a willing sacrifice,” she said, and she took Grantaire’s hand and lifted him up like he was nothing. “And acceptable in my sight.”

***

Grantaire woke up he did not know how much later, lying stiff on the sticky floor. He had woken up like this before, in a fair many taverns, tired and dizzy and with black spots dancing at the edges of his sight. When he tried to sit up, the black spots overwhelmed his vision, and he fell again to the floor. 

He opened his eyes again. This time he was more cautious, wiggling his toes, moving his fingers: not trying to sit up yet. His fingers brushed against wool, at it surprised him. Someone had lain a covering over him.

Grantaire sat up again, as slowly as an old man, and brushed his hand across the wool. Red wool, he saw, well-worn but still vibrant. A coat: a crimson coat. 

Enjolras’s coat. He had left it with Grantaire, to keep him warm.


End file.
